My new Archer in Portugal. How to get it home?

[Geoff]

The plane I bought in FSE does have AP installed. It's listed as VFR, IFR, Autopilot. It's just that my Carenado Archer does not have an autopilot. For most purposes, that's fine with me, but for a couple of these long legs across water, I think I'd want an autopilot.

In the X-Plane forums, I read that I can add autopilot even to the Carenado plane; I just might not be able to see the controls, which I can live with. Someone posted:

"For Autopilot functionality, you could open up the plane in PlaneMaker, go to the "Standard>Cockpit_3D" menu, and drag the autopilot buttons into the upper right corner, where you see the viewpoint and Field of View slider. That will then mean that your autopilot is added in a "hidden" fashion. You can access it via the pop-up menu in X-Plane (press the click zone just above the artificial horizon), and you can then also use keyboard shortcuts or preset joystick buttons to operate the autopilot." The post is in this thread: http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?sho ... 217&page=2

So I was thinking I'd make a backup copy of my Archer, then follow those instructions, then see if I can run the plane in FSE with an autopilot. Does that make sense?

[trigger_fsx]

Trigger, if you're still reading, was fuel a close thing when you crossed from BGBW to CYCA (584 nm)?

I had a look at my plane's flightlog >>> 2014/11/23 17:55:27 trigger_fsx flight:BGBW → CYCA 05:06 584

If I remember correctly I was running her super lean and flying @ +- 118 knots and my estimated range was about 650nm. I was also using the C72 Cutlass from Alabeo which has retractable gear, not sure if that makes a difference. I also remember the engine cutting out at higher altitudes with the carb heat fully engaged.....was quite an interesting flight.

[Geoff]

Wow, sounds like it was a close thing! I'm going to take a couple longish trips on my way to Greenland to see how things go. But I may end up chickening out and taking the far northern route to Canada.

[Geoff]

Oh, maybe the retractable gear did help you, Trigger. The pilot's handbook for my Archer suggests its efficiency improves by as much as 7% if I use the wheel fairings, which I keep forgetting to select.

Even without the fairings, I just had an encouraging first long flight. I flew from Santiago, Spain to Biarritz, France -- 302 miles as the crow flies, but I hopped from VOR to VOR, so my distance flown was at least 310 or 311 miles. Probably more, as I had a couple minor navigational misadventures. I cruised at 6500 feet and leaned the mixture only cautiously; I'm not sure how far I can push the EGT gauge to the right. According to FSE, I burned 26 gallons of the 43 gallons of fuel I started with, plus I was hauling a 226 km FSE cargo. That works out to 11.96, maybe 12 miles per gallon. With a full tank of 48 gallons, that implies a range of about 574 miles. Maybe at a higher altitude, with thinner mixture, and no cargo, I can squeeze out more. But I had no headwind (or tailwind) on this flight. And as I look at my fuel gauges in X-Plane, they show more like 30 gallons burned, which would be more like 10 mpg; not so great.

Even with that worst-case gas mileage, if I choose my winds right, I can make the 446 miles from western Greenland to far northeastern Canada. I'm just hoping I can follow your southern Greenland route, as it would save me hundreds of miles.

[Keith Smith]

Geoff, you can lean the mixture until the EGT peaks, then lean a little more and the EGT will start dropping (the back side of the curve). That's lean of peak, and is where you'll achieve best economy. The CHT's will run cooler, too.

[hoser70]

The plane I bought in FSE does have AP installed. It's listed as VFR, IFR, Autopilot. It's just that my Carenado Archer does not have an autopilot.

Oh, gotcha! I read your first post and saw no autopilot, assuming you meant in FSE. Editing files to install one, still might through up a flag, but there is a way to request aircraft be added at FSE.

[Geoff]

Keith: Ah, thanks. I'll try running "lean of peak" and see how it affects fuel economy. It's really fun trying to optimize this.

Hoser70: Yep, I've got autopilot working now. I'm going to use it for these long hauls, but once I've got this plane into the PE coverage area, I hope and expect to hand-fly it just about everywhere, to get better at managing pilot workload including ATC. And because it's quite fun to steer the Archer myself.

Update on my travels: I've flown my way to Bordeaux and now into central France. Next flight will take me to le Havre. I have jobs lined up to Dunkirk and Heathrow, and then we'll see after that. Having lots of fun! The weather is beautiful -- wish you were here!

[Geoff]

And we've landed safely at Heathrow, after enduring 13 frames per second, thanks to experimentation with scenery. It was a slow-motion landing, but a safe one.

Tomorrow we head north, starting with a short hop to Wyton, a military field. Three "Heathrow shuttle pax" apparently need a lift there.

[Keith Smith]

There's a Piper Archer for sale in Tracy (KTCY) just east of SFO. Also, Lee Williams has one for sale a 33CA. I know there's a method to his $1MM pricing, I just forget what it is. If I recall, he's just letting ppl know it's potentially for sale. Either that, or the plane is made of titanium. As though an Archer couldn't be made to go any slower....

Would those two not have been good candidates, or did you just want the experience of ferrying a long distance?

[Geoff]

Oooh, when I was looking, that Archer was not at sale at Tracy. In fact, I'd been planning to buy an Archer on sale near Seattle, but someone snapped it up just before I raised the funds to buy it. I had noticed the Archer on sale for $1 million, but that was way out of my price range, and it hadn't occurred to me it might be a negotiating tactic! Apart from that, the only other Archers available were expensive and were in places like Brazil. I got mine pretty cheap -- close to $100,000 with all but GPS installed, and I have no GPS in my aircraft anyway.

So no, I definitely was not seeking out the experience of ferrying, especially as I already have a Bonanza in Oz that I plan to move to PE's area some day. I had read that aircraft don't often come up for sale on FSE, so I snapped up the Portugal Archer for a low price.